Elaine Cox and Hany Shoukry from Oxford Brookes University discuss four modes of action research derived from observations of coaching study over the past 15 years
There’s an affinity between action research and coaching: the cyclical nature of action research involves iterations of planning, action, reflection and conceptualisation, not unlike some models of coaching.
These iterations are common across all variants of action research and distinguish action research from other forms of research. Action research also enables investigation in real time, which is important when generating understanding of dynamic relationships and helping to improve or develop practice.
However, while action research has always been an appropriate methodology for exploring coaching, there’s a lack of clarity surrounding its use. In this article we introduce four modes of action research which we hope will help students think clearly about the purpose, characteristics and outcome of their research before commencing study design.
- Inquiry Action Research focuses solely on researchers making improvements to their own understanding of a problem and making changes to skills, behaviours and beliefs to address a personal challenge. As a mode of action research, Inquiry Action Research is specifically concerned with enhancing practitioner learning to inform individual practice and, as such, uses others only as ‘key informants’ to gather information. In a coaching context, the focus would mainly be on the coach improving their practice.
In coaching there are few examples of published work documenting this kind of personal inquiry since what’s often missing is the writing up of the inquiry to produce research. It’s only when practitioners make the effort to “commit their thoughts and findings to writing and public scrutiny [that] action learning becomes action research” (Zuber-Skerritt, 2002: 146).
- Evolutionary Action Research is where a researcher plans changes/improvements to a model or theory for the good of others or the profession. We call the mode ‘evolutionary’ to capture the idea of progression – the improvement of a coaching model or practice, or development of a cohort of practitioners/clients, over time.
A clear alignment can be seen between Ives’ (2011) research and the Evolutionary Action Research mode: the aim was to develop a goal-focused coaching model as an outsider researcher with co-operation from insider participants who were representative of the eventual target recipients of the model. Ives explained the design of the study as a “continuous effort to tailor the coaching model to best help the students achieve their self-set goals” (2011:16).
- Collective Action Research involves working closely with participants as a team of ‘co-researchers’ to achieve a collective research goal. It’s similar to the cooperative or collaborative action research proposed by Reason and Bradbury (2008) in that it involves co-researchers cooperating on the same problem and having an active professional and personal involvement in, it but differs because the researcher, necessarily, has ultimate responsibility for the project.
Unlike the Evolutionary mode, where the research may not be entirely relevant to participants, the Collective mode is all about the team, a collective of co-researchers with shared interests and approaches to the research.
An example of this mode is a longitudinal coaching project aimed at helping increase psychosocial skills for retail support workers in a mobile communications organisation. Cox and Patrick explain the project as “collaboration between researchers and members of different levels of the organization” (2012: 38). Unlike Inquiry and Evolutionary Action Research, where research is undertaken solely by an individual practitioner-researcher, the participant employees formed a collective with a real interest in their own development. They shared an interest in solutions and practices applicable to their specific situation.
- Transformative Action Research is aimed at making changes not just within a system but to the system itself. Whereas in Collective Action Research the research remains at the level of practice or situational improvement for participants, it needn’t promote transformation or wider social action. Transformative Action Research, however, would be designed to change situations and systems. This mode involves total commitment by all participants to a shared transformational goal aimed at challenging the status quo.
In our example, Shoukry (2016) recruited 12 human development specialists to learn and then implement a ‘coaching for emancipation’ model with clients. The coaches and clients were all Egyptian subjects with experience of oppression in their country. Shoukry described how clients appeared initially powerless and how coaches transformed their lives by “reflecting hope, appreciation and respect in the coaching dialogue; by using goal setting and imagination, celebrating achievements, and by helping coachees to uncover the cycle of oppression, and to reconstruct a holistic view of their experiences” (2016:20).
We always recommend researchers think explicitly about the outcomes of the investigation before designing their study. With the identification of these four action research modes, it’s possible to consider the purpose, outcomes, different elements of participant involvement and researcher role.
These are some of the challenges of action research that have been under-theorised so far, but which should help students and practitioner-researchers to plan more effective studies, not only in the coaching arena, but also in other disciplines where practitioner/client interaction is key.
- This article is extracted and abridged from: E Cox, H Shoukry & J Cook, ‘Action Research’, in P Jackson & E Cox (Eds.), Doing Coaching Research, SAGE, 2020
About the authors
- Elaine Cox leads the Doctor of Coaching and Mentoring programme at Oxford Brookes University
- Dr Hany Shoukry is a researcher/practitioner in coaching and human development, and an honorary research associate at Oxford Brookes University
References
- E Cox & C Patrick, ‘Managing emotions at work: How coaching affects retail support workers’ performance and motivation’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching & Mentoring, 10(2), 34-51, 2012
- Y Ives, Goal-focused Coaching: Theoretical foundations and practical implications, PhD Thesis, Oxford Brookes University, 2011
- D A Kolb, Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984
- P Reason & H Bradbury, Handbook of Action Research. London: SAGE, 2008
- H Shoukry, ‘Coaching for Emancipation: A framework for coaching in oppressive environments’, in International Journal of Evidence Based Coaching and Mentoring, 14(2), 15-30, 2016
- O Zuber-Skerritt, ‘A model for designing action learning and action research programs’ in The Learning Organization, 9(4), 143-149, 2002